LINCOLN  ROOM 


UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 
LIBRARY 


THE   REAL  LIFE 


OF 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 


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THE  REAL  LIFE  ^^^.^ 


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ABRAHAM    LH^COLK 


A  TALK  WITH  M.  HEENDOI^, 


HIS  LATE  LAW   PARTNER. 


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GEORGE  ALFRED "^TOWNSEND. 


WITH  CABINET  PORTRAIT,  AND  MR.  LINCOLN\S  FAVOIUTE  POEx.. 


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NEW     YORK: 
PUBLICATION    OFFICE,    BIBLE  ll-OUSE. 

JAMES    PORTEUS,    GENEEAL   AGEK'J . 

^  1867. 


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ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 


A  TALK  AVITH  THE  LATE  PRESIDENT'S  LAW 

PARTNER. 


The  following  charming  description  of  the  real  life  of  the  late  President  was 
written  by  the  accomplished  poet,  lecturer,  and  correspondent,  Mr.  George 
Alfred  Townsend,  and  published  in  the  New  York  Tribune.     It  is  dated — 

Springfield,  III.,  Jan.  25,  1867. 

When  history  makes  up  its  mind  to  commemorate  a  place,  no 
special  correspondence  can  keep  pace  with  it.  After  Mr.  Lincoln's 
nomination  to  the  Presidency — the  most  Republican  of  all  coiips 
d'etat — the  little  city  of  SjDringfield  ascended  at  a  bound  from  the 
commonplace  to  the  memorable.  Caravans  of  patriots  from  all  the 
other  States  wended  across  the  prairies  to  visit  it.  From  a  market 
town,  where  eggs  were  duly  exchanged  for  calico,  and  the  father  of 
the  family  reported  himself  twice  a  year  to  get  stone-drunk,  it  rose 
to  be  the  home  of  a  President,  and  sent  him  across  the  continent  to 
usefulness  and  martyrdom.  His  body  lies  near  by  it — shrine  which 
any  city  might  covet — and  his  prim  frame  residence,  practical  and 
mud-colored,  I  have  walked  around  these  two  nights,  to  find  my 
curiosity  shared  by  a  half-dozen  couples,  looking  upon  it  as  if  the  tall 
ghost  of  its  former  owner  might  possibly  appear. 

I  came  here  to  lecture ;  of  two  days  leisure  spared  me  I  have 
passed  one-half  of  each  in  conversation  with  a  man  who  knew  the 
great  citizen  of  Springfield  for  twenty  years  anterior  to  his  Chief  Magis- 
tracy better  and  closer  than  any  human  being.  Until  very  lately 
you  might  have  read  upon  a  bare  stairway,  opposite  the  State  House 
Square,  the  sign  of  Lincoln  &  Herndon.  A  year  ago  it  gave  place 
to  the  name  of  Herndon  &  Zane.  Ascending  the  stairs  one  flight, 
you  see  two  doors  opening  to  your  right  hand.  That  in  the  rear  leads 
to  what  was  for  one  generation  the  law  office  of  the  President. 
Within,  it  is  a  dismantled  room,  strewn  with  faded  briefs  and  leaves 


of  law  books ;  no  desks  nor  chairs  remaining  ;  its  single  bracket  of 
gas  darkened  in  the  center,  by  whose  flame  he  whom  our  children's 
children  shall  reverently  name,  prepared,  perhaps,  his  gentle,  sturdy 
utterances ;  and  out  of  its  window  you  get  a  sweep  of  stable-roofs 
and  dingy  back  yards,  where  he  must  have  looked  a  thousand  times, 
pondering  Freedom  and  Empire,  with  his  eye  upon  ash-heaps  and 
crowing  cocks  and  young  Americans  sledging  or  ball-playing.  As 
simple  an  office,  even  for  a  country  lawyer,  as  ever  I  saw  in  my  life, 
it  is  now  in  the  transition  condition  of  being  prepared  for  another 
tenant.  In  the  middle  of  the  room  the  future  President  sat  at  a  table 
side,  and  in  the  adjoining  front  room  this  table  and  all  the  furniture 
of  the  place  is  still  retained,  while  in  its  back  corner,  looking  medi- 
tatively at  the  cylinder  stove,  you  see  Mr.  Herndon,  the  partner  and 
authority  I  have  referred  to. 

He  has  given  me  permission  to  write  what  I  choose  of  himself 
and  his  dead  friend,  and  among  all  the  men  I  have  ever  met  he  is  the 
readiest  to  understand  a  question  and  to  give  even  and  direct  answers. 
He  resembles  Mr,  Lincoln  so  much,  and  in  his  present  quarters,  garb, 
and  worldly  condition,  is  so  nearly  a  reproduction  of  A.  Lincoln,  law- 
yer, as  he  lived  before  Fame  drove  a  chariot  through  this  second 
story,  that  we  may  as  well  take  a  turn  around  the  surviving  man  and 
the  room. 

Lincoln  was  the  taller  and  older,  and  the  senior  partner ;  he  had 
been  in  two  or  three  associations  with  lawyers ;  one  of  his  early 
partners,  by  fraud  or  mismanagement,  got  him  into  debt,  and  he  car- 
ried the  burden  of  it  about  ten  years ;  his  latest  partner,  excepting 
Herndon,  was  anxious  to  be  a  candidate  for  the  Legislature,  and  as 
Mr.  Lincoln  desired  the  same  honor  at  the  same  time,  a  dissolution 
was  inevitable,  and  then  to  Herndon's  great  surprise,  for  he  was  very 
young  and  obscure,  Lincoln  said :  "  Billy,  let  us  go  into  business  to- 
gether." Herndon  accepted  the  proposition  thankfully.  Mr.  Lincoln 
arranged  the  terms  of  partnership,  and  the  new  "  shingle  "  went  up 
directly,  never  to  be  removed  till  the  bullet  of  Booth  had  done  its 
errand. 

How  young  Herndon  might  have  looked  twenty-five  years  ago  we 
can  scarcely  infer  from  the  saffron-faced,  blue-black  haired  man  before 
us,  bearded  bushily  at  the  throat,  disposed  to  shut  one  eye  for  accuracy 
in  conversation,  his  teeth  discolored  by  tobacco,  and  over  his  angular 
features,  which  suggest  Mr.  Lincoln's  in  ampleness  and  shape,  the 
same  half-tender  melancholy,  the  result  in  both  cases,  perhaps,  of  hard 
frontier  work,  poor  pay,  thoughtful  abstraction,  and  a  disposition  to 
share  the  sorrows  of  mankind. 


Oh  !  why  should  the  spirit  of  mortal  be  proud — 
is  the  sentiment  of  Herudon's  face,  as  it  was  of  Mr.  Lincoln's — a 
gravity  that  befits  greatness  well,  when  it  comes,  and  in  the  dress  of 
the  firm  of  Lincoln  &  Herndon  you  see  this  sentiment  practicalized. 
"  Mr.  Lincoln,"  said  Mr.  Herndon,  "  cared  so  little  about  clothes 
that  sometimes  he  did  not  put  all  of  them  on.  He  was  brought  up 
barefoot."  Mr.  Herndon,  by  parallel,  wears  to-day  a  bright  yellow 
pair  of  breeches,  turned  up  twice  at  the  bottoms,  and  looks  to  be  a 
wind-hardened  farmer,  rather  than  one  of  the  best  lawyers  in  the 
State,  and,  as  a  public  man,  is  charged  with  delivering  the  best  stump 
speeches  in  Illinois,  on  the  Republican  side,  during  the  last  election. 
His  address  is  homely  in  form,  commencing  with,  "  Friend,  I'll  answer 
you ;"  and  this  he  does  without  equivocation,  with  his  long  fore-finger 
extended,  and  with  such  fund  of  new  information  upon  the  revered 
memory  in  question  that  although  the  Lincoln  biographers,  from 
Holland  up,  have  talked  with  him,  he  seems  to  be  brimful  of  new 
reminiscences.  With  an  extraordinary  memory,  great  facility  of 
inference,  and  a  sturdy  originality  of  opinion,  he  had  the  eflTect  upon 
me  to  stagger  all  my  notions  of  the  dead  President's  character.  He 
has  been  a  wonderful  desultory  reader,  and  in  his  law  library  you 
may  see  the  anomalous  companions  for  a  prairie  attorney  of  Bailey's 
Festus,  Schlegel's  Critique,  Comte's  Philosophy,  Louis  Blanc,  and 
many  of  the  disobedient  essayists.  He  has  one  of  the  best  private 
libraries  in  the  West,  and  in  this  respect  is  unlike  Mr.  Lincoln,  who 
seldom  bought  a  new  book,  and  seldom  read  one.  Mr,  Lincoln's  ed- 
ucation was  almost  entirely  a  newspaper  one.  He  was  one  of  the 
most  thorough  newspaper  readers  in  America,  and  for  fifteen  years 
before  his  election  to  the  Presidency  subscribed  regularly  to  The 
Richmond  Enquirer  and  The  Charleston  Mercury.  He  grew  slowly, 
therefore,  as  public  opinion  grew,  and  as  an  Anti-Slavery  man  was  a 
gradual  convert ;  whereas  Herndon,  years  before,  embraced  at  a  leap 
all  the  social  reforms,  read  all  the  agitators,  and  talked  human  liberty 
to  Mr.  Lincoln,  gravely  listening,  till  a  fraternity  of  sentiment  devel- 
oped, and  about  the  year  1844  the  coming  emancipator  declared  him- 
self an  enemy  of  slaveholdiug. 

It  is  worth  while  to  stop  and  ponder  that  while  Rhett  and  Wise, 
with  Slavery  in  full  feather,  wrote  every  day  of  the  inviolateness  of 
Secession  and  the  divinity  of  bondage,  these  two  Illinois  lawyers,  in 
their  little  square  office,  read  every  vaunting,  cruel  word,  paid  to  read 
it,  and  educated  themselves  out  of  their  mutual  indignations — the  one 
to  a  grand  agency,  the  other  to  as  grand  an  abhorrence. 

Mr.  Lincoln  had  some  six  or  seven  places  of  residence  during  his 
life ;  he  was  of  full  age  before  he  left  his  family  never  to  return,  and 


the  pleasantest  of  his  reminiseences  were  of  his  mother,  to  whom  he 
imputed  the  best  and  the  brightest  qualities  he  had  inherited.  He 
broke  out  once  to  Mr.  Herndon,  as  they  were  returning  from  Court 
in  another  county  : 

"  Billy,  all  I  am  or  can  be  I  owe  to  my  angel-mother." 
As  a  boy  Lincoln  made  a  frontierman's  living  by  hard  work,  pol- 
ing a  flat-boat,  getting  out  cedar  and  chestnut  rails,  even  sawing  wood. 
The  scene  of  his  early  struggles  was  Indiana,  and  there  he  developed 
into  a  sort  of  amateur  public  clerk,  writing  letters  for  folks  to  whom 
a  steel  pen  was  a  mystery,  giving  miscellaneous  advice  on  law  and 
business,  and  excelling  particularly  in  the  ingenuities  of  anecdote  and 
illustration.  The  story-telling  reputation  he  retains  was  no  fabulous 
qualification,  nor  was  it  an  idle  and  gossipy  recreation,  but  a  means 
of  making  intelligence  plain  to  rude  minds.  At  this  stage  of  his  life 
he  wore  moccasins  and  a  hunting-shirt,  and  was  in  great  request  by 
thick-headed  people,  because  of  his  skill  and  clearness  in  narration. 
The  jury  always  got  from  him  a  fair  statement  of  any  case  in  hand, 
and  years  later  it  was  remarked  by  the  Chief  Justice  of  Illinois  that 
when  Lincoln  spoke  he  argued  both  sides  of  the  case  so  well  that  a 
speech  in  response  was  always  superfluous.  The  habit  he  had  of  en- 
forcing a  fact  with  an  anecdote  so  far  survived  his  moccasin  days  that 
it  seems  to  have  been  constitutional  in  a  sense.  No  man  ever  told 
so  many  stories,  and  he  was  seldom  known  either  to  repeat  one  twice 
or  to  tell  one  that  was  hackneyed.  His  long,  variable  and  extensive 
experience  with  common,  native  people  made  him  acquainted  with  a 
thousand  oddities,  and  he  had  a  familiar  way  of  relating  them  that 
was  as  piquant  as  his  application  of  them.  It  is  also  true  that  some 
of  these  stories  were  more  cogent  than  delicate,  yet  in  no  single  ease 
was  he  ever  remembered  to  have  told  an  exceptional  anecdote  for 
the  sake  of  that  in  which  it  was  exceptional.  Mr,  Herndon  remem- 
bers a  person  who  so  far  mistook  Mr.  Lincoln  once  as  to  tell  a  coarse 
story  without  a  purpose.  During  the  recital  Mr.  Lincoln's  face 
worked  impatiently.     When  the  man  had  gone  he  said  : 

"  I  had  nearly  put  that  fellow  out  of  the  ofiice.  He  disgusts  me." 
Finally  settled  at  Springfield,  Mr.  Lincoln  found  the  law  jearlous 
and  niggard.  He  was  always  able  to  keep  a  horse,  and  was  very 
fond  of  riding ;  but  he  made  a  poor  income,  though  one  not  incom- 
mensurate with  the  general  smallness  of  his  colleagues  at  the  Illinois 
bar.  Now  and  then  he  was  pinched  to  distress,  and  went  to  bed  with 
no  notion  of  how  he  should  meet  the  morrow's  claims.  For  nearly 
a  fifth  part  of  his  whole  life  he  owed  money  that  he  could  not  pay, 
and  although  of  easy  disposition,  the  debt  galled  him  and  hastened 


his  wrinkles.  He  cleared  himself  finally  on  his  return  from  Wash- 
ington City,  where  he  sat  as  a  Representative  in  Congress.  When  he 
quitted  Springfield  for  the  White  House  he  was  worth  just  $30,000. 
Never  moody  nor  petulant,  he  yet  loved  solitude  and  self-communion, 
and  has  been  known  to  sit  six  hours  in  one  place,  to  lie  on  his  back, 
for  example,  on  the  floor  of  his  house,  looking  absently  at  the  ceiling, 
or  to  sun  himself,  sitting  upon  a  fence,  or  in  a  hay-mow  all  the  day, 
passing  the  processes  of  a  plea  through  his  mind,  or  forming  some 
political  judgment. 

The  tenderness  of  his  nature  was  not  always  manifest,  yet  he  had 
his  romance  in  early  manhood,  and  as  of  this  Mr.  Herndon  had 
spoken  in  public,  I  asked  particularly  about  it. 

At  Sangamon,  Illinois,  a  pretty  and  high-spirited  girl,  without  for- 
tune, made  havoc  in  many  hearts,  and  Mr.  Lincoln  constituted  one  of 
three  earnest  suitors  who  wanted  her  in  marriage.  She  preferred  the 
addresses  of  a  young  merchant  of  the  town,  and  gave  the  other  two 
their  conge.  Her  affianced  soon  afterwards  went  East  to  buy  goods, 
but  as  he  returned  was  taken  with  brain  fever  in  some  wayside  town, 
and  lay  raving  for  three  months,  unknown  by  name  or  residence  to 
his  entertainers.  A  rumor  started  that  he  had  run  away  to  avoid 
marrying  his  lady,  and,  waiting  some  time  in  vain  to  hear  from  him, 
she  received  anew  the  attentions  of  Mr.  Lincoln.  About  the  time 
when  they  passed  from  courtesy  to  tenderness,  and  marriage  between 
them  was  more  than  hinted  at,  the  sick  man  returned  like  a  ghost, 
gauged  the  condition  of  affairs,  and  upbraided  the  lady  with  fickleness. 
She  had  a  delicate  sense  of  honor,  and  felt  keenly  the  shame  of  having 
seemed  to  trifle  with  two  gentlemen  at  once ;  this  preyed  upon  her 
mind  till  her  body,  not  very  strong,  suflfered  by  sympathy,  and  Mr. 
Herndon  has  oral  and  written  testimony  that  the  girl  died  out  of  re- 
gret at  the  equivocal  position  she  had  unwittingly  assumed.  The 
names  of  all  the  parties  he  has  given  me,  but  I  do  not  care  to  print 
them. 

On  the  dead  woman's  grave  Mr.  Lincoln  promised  himself  never 
to  marry.  This  vow  he  kept  very  long.  His  marriage  was  in  every 
respect  advantageous  to  him.  It  whetted  his  ambition,  did  not  nurse 
too  much  a  penchant  for  home  indolence  that  he  had,  and  taught  him 
particularly  that  there  was  something  called  society,  which  observed 
one's  boots  as  well  as  his  principles.  He  was  always  a  loyal  and 
reverent  husband,  a  gentle  but  not  positive  father,  and  his  wife  saw 
the  Presidency  for  him  before  the  thought  of  it  troubled  him. 

He  built  the  frame  house  in  Springfield,  which  is  now  so  cele- 
brated, at  a  comparatively  recent  period.     I  went  over  it  yesterday 


8 


with  amusement  at  its  utter  practicality.  It  stands  upon  a  prosaic 
corner,  in  an  inferior  quarter  of  the  town,  and  was  the  design  of  a  car- 
penter, not  an  architect.  A  narrow  yard  and  palings  shut  it  from  the 
street ;  the  door  is  in  the  middle,  and  is  approached  by  four  or  five 
wooden  steps  ;  on  the  abutment  beside  these  he  stood  afler  his  nomi- 
nation, in  the  blaze  of  pine  torches,  the  thunder  of  huzzas  breaking 
around  his  head,  the  only  solemn  man  in  Springfield.  He  might  have 
felt  that  all  these  gratulations  were  such  as  the  Aztecs  spent  upon  the 
beautiful  captive  who  was  to  be  sacrificed  in  the  teocallis. 

As  a  lawyer,  he  was  a  close  student  of  those  cases  that  interested 
him.  Slow  to  take  them  into  his  mind,  passing  in  their  consideration 
from  stage  to  stage,  and  if  he  found  beneath  an  embodied  principle, 
his  heart  grew  into  the  work  of  developing  it.  He  frequently  sat  up 
all  night,  preparing  some  favorite  argument,  and  never  failed  to  pre- 
sent it  so  perspicuously  that  dull  intellects  grew  appreciative  and 
shrewd  ones  absorbed.  Some  of  his  legal  arguments  are  described  as 
having  been  classical.  Yet,  beneath  all  the  drudgery  of  his  craft,  he 
was  at  soul  a  politician  rather  than  an  attorney.  Every  legal  study 
carried  him  beyond  itself  to  the  mysteries  of  public  infirmity.  "  He 
sat,"  says  Mr.  Herndon,  "  looking  through  a  brief  to  the  construction 
of  society  and  the  moral  government  of  God,"  Now  and  then  he 
shut  himself  up  all  night,  and  lay  on  his  office  floor  in  his  careless  gar- 
ments, revolving  some  problem  set  by  a  village  client  that  had  ex- 
panded to  a  great  human  principle.  At  these  times  he  seemed  to  be 
a  dreamer  reasoning.  Again,  he  drove  miles  over  the  prairies  with 
his  lips  close  shut,  wrinkling,  softly  humming,  and  returned  again  at 
night  strangely  white  and  exhausted. 

Before  his  great  public  call  came  he  had  passed  the  world  through 
his  silent  thought,  as  if  it  had  been  a  legal  case  to  be  stated  and  ar- 
gued. 

"  Did  he  ever  quarrel,  Mr.  Herndon  V 

"  Seldom,  friend,  but  sometimes.  Once  I  saw  him  incensed  at  a 
Judge  for  giving  an  imfair  decision.  It  was  a  terrible  spectacle.  As 
he  was  grand  in  his  good  nature,  so  he  was  grand  in  his  rage.  At  an- 
other time  I  saw  two  men  come  to  blows  in  his  presence ;  he  picked 
them  up  separately  and  tossed  them  apart  like  a  couple  of  kittens. 
He  was  the  strongest  man  I  ever  knew,  and  has  been  known  to  lift  a 
man  of  his  own  weight  and  throw  him  over  a  worm  fence.  Once,  in 
Springfield,  the  Irish  voters  meditated  taking  possession  of  the  polls. 
News  came  down  the  street  that  they  would  permit  nobody  to  vote 
but  those  of  their  own  party.  Mr.  Lincoln  seized  an  ax-handle  from 
a  hardware  store,  and  went  alone  to  opeii  a  way  to  the  ballot-box. 


9 


His  appearance  intimidated  them,  and  we  had  neither  threats  nor  col- 
lisions all  that  day.  He  was  never  sick  during  the  whole  of  om*  long 
acquaintance ;  being  a  man  of  slow  circulation,  and  of  most  regular 
habits,  capable  of  subsisting  upon  a  morsel,  he  was  wiry  and  indurated 
beyond  the  best  of  our  Western  men,  and  even  with  Booth's  bidlet  in 
his  brain  he  lived  ten  hours.  His  life  in  general  was  smooth  and  un- 
ruffled. He  had  no  prejudices  against  any  class,  preferring  the  Ger- 
mans to  any  of  the  foreign  element,  yet  tolerating — as  I  (Herndon) 
never  could — even  the  Irish." 

"Did  he  ever  drink?" 

"  Only  in  Indiana,  when  he  took  whisky  as  ague  medicine.  After 
his  nomination  for  the  Presidency  it  was  suggested  to  him  that  the 
Visiting  Committee  would  require  some  hospitality.  '  Very  well,' 
he  said,  '  any  food  that  is  proper  I  authorize  to  be  purchased." 

"  '  But  these  gentlemen  will  expect  some  liquors.' 

"  '  I  can't  permit  to  strangers  what  I  do  not  do  myself  No 
liquors,  Billy  !  there's  the  tavern  !'  " 

Of  miscellaneous  books  Mr.  Lincoln's  favorites  were  Shakspeare 
and  Pope.  He  never  read  Byron,  and  of  contemporary  American 
poets  preferred  the  patriotic  selections  chiefly.  Milton  he  knew  by 
heart,  and  was  a  good  literary  reader  of  the  Bible.  His  friends  were 
selected  with  regard  to  their  sincerity  chiefly  ;  he  loved  not  cliques, 
and  those  who  knew  him  best  were  younger  than  he.  He  was  cau- 
tious in  friendships,  no  hero-worshiper,  and  for  Mr.  Douglas,  his 
most  prominent  antagonist,  had  much  less  admiration  than  repulsion. 
Douglas  was  uneasily  arrogant  in  Lincoln's  presence;  the  latter, 
never  sensitive  nor  flurried,  so  grew  by  his  imperturbability  that 
when  he  reached  the  White  House,  Mr.  Douglas  was  less  surprised 
than  anybody  else.  The  great  Senatorial  campaign,  in  which  they 
figured  together,  is  remembered  by  every  Springfielder.  Douglas, 
with  his  powerful  voice  and  facile  energy,  went  into  it  under  full 
steam.  Lincoln  began  lucidly  and  cautiously.  When  they  came  out 
of  it  Douglas  was  worn  down  with  rage  and  hoarseness,  and  Lincoln 
was  fresher  than  ever.  He  prepared  all  the  speeches  of  this  campaign 
by  silent  meditation,  sitting  or  lying  alone,  studying  the  flies  on  the 
ceiling.  The  best  evidence  of  his  superiority  in  this  debate  is  the 
fact  that  the  Republicans  circulated  both  sets  of  speeches  as  a  cam- 
paign document  in  1860,  and  Mr.  Douglas'  friends  refused  to  do  so. 

The  most  remarkable  episode  of  Herndon's  conversation — which 
I  am  repeating  by  memory  only — relates  to  Mr.  Lincoln's  Presiden- 
tial aspirations.  In  common  with  most  people,  I  had  concluded  that 
this  great  honor  came  to  Mr.  Lincoln  without  paving,  as  unexpected 


10 


as  it  was  unsolicited,  and  to  him  a  staggering  piece  of  luck,  like  a  lot- 
tery prize.  This  estimate  is  a  charming  one,  but  it  is  not  a  true  one. 
When  the  Douglas  and  Lincoln  contest  was  ended,  the  defeated  man 
said  to  his  partner : 

"  Billy,  I  knew  I  should  miss  the  place  when  I  competed  for  it. 
This  defeat  will  make  me  President." 

He  refused,  in  the  interim,  any  proposition  looking  to  his  accept- 
ance of  a  lesser  office,  and  this  with  the  concurrence  of  his  friends 
and  family.  At  the  same  time  he  took  no  immediate  means  to  pre- 
cipitate his  opportunity,  rather,  like  a  man  destined,  sat  more  closely 
to  study  and  vigilance,  read  all  the  issues  as  they  developed,  and 
waited  for  his  call. 

It  came  at  last,  in  a  special  invitation  to  visit  New  York  and  speak 
in  the  Cooper  Institute.  He  felt  intuitively  that  this  was  the  Rubicon, 
and,  with  a  human  thrill,  paused  and  hesitated. 

It  is  possible  that,  at  this  moment,  had  any  close  friend  whispered 
"  stay,"  the  Republic  might  be  dead  and  Abraham  Lincoln  living. 

"  Go,  Mr.  Lincoln,"  said  Herndon,  "  make  your  best  effort.  Speak 
with  your  usual  lucidity  and  thoroughness." 

Home  said  "  Go  "  also. 

He  appeared  in  New  1  ork,  as  all  of  you  remember,  and  his  suc- 
cess there  drew  the  attention  of  the  country  to  his  name.  The  West 
can  originate  men :  the  East  must  pass  them ;  and  the  firm  of  Lincoln 
&  Herndon  died,  in  reality,  when  the  Convention  met  at  Chicago. 
He  had  by  this  time  reached  the  highest  usefulness  in  his  State  of 
which  his  nature  was  capable. 

The  best  lawyer  in  it,  the  hero  of  a  debate  equivalent  to  a  Senator- 
ship,  with  a  mind  too  broad  and  gra^e for  a  mere  gubernatorial  place, 
and  already  by  four  years'  destiny  and  preparation  President  of  the 
United  States,  he  went  up  to  the  post  with  a  dignity  and  ease  that 
made  men  stare,  because  they  had  not  seen  the  steps  he  took  upon  the 
road. 

At  last  he  came  to  his  office  for  the  last  time. 

"  Billy,"  said  he,  "  we  must  say  good-bye." 

Both  of  them  cried,  speechlessly. 

"  You  shall  keep  up  the  firm-name,  Billy,  if  it  will  be  of  use  to 
you." 

They  shook  hands  upon  it,  with  tears  in  their  eyes. 

"  I  love  the  people  here,  Billy,  and  owe  them  all  that  I  am.  If 
God  spares  my  life  to  the  end,  I  shall  come  back  among  you,  and 
spend  the  remnant  of  my  days." 

He  never  returned  to   Springfield  till  glory  brought  him  home 


11 


under  her  plumes,  a  completed  life,  and  the  prairie,  like  a  neighbor, 
opened  its  door  to  take  him  in. 

When  Mr.  Herndon  saw  him  again  at  Washington  City  he  was 
furrowed  and  fretted  with  state  cares.  They  talked  a  while  of  the 
old  office,  the  clients,  and  the  town,  and  then  the  war  rolled  between 
them  once  more. 

One  sentence  Mr.  Herndon  recollects  of  the  President  before  his 
departure  for  Washington  that  is  memorable  as  showing  his  purpose. 

"  Billy,"  he  said,  "  I  hope  there  will  be  no  trouble ;  but  I  will 
make  the  South  a  grave-yard  rather  than  see  a  Slavery  gospel  triumph, 
or  successful  secession  lose  this  Government  to  the  cause  of  the 
people  and  representative  institutions." 

To  this  Mr.  Herndon  added:  "Mr.  Lincoln  was  merciless  in  the 
abstract.  Battles  never  moved  him,  unless  he  trode  among  their 
corpses.  He  would  have  canned  on  the  war  forever,  or  as  long  as  the 
people  intrusted  him  its  management,  rather  than  give  up." 

Speaking  thus,  among  the  associations  of  his  working  life,  the 
years  of  Abraham  Lincoln  began  to  return  in  the  vividness  of  their 
monotony,  bleak  and  unremunerated,  hard  and  practical,  full  of  patient 
walk  down  a  road  without  a  turning,  brightened  by  dutifulness  alone, 
pointed  but  not  cheered  by  wayside  anecdote,  and  successful,  not  so 
much  because  he  was  sanguine  of  himself,  as  because  he  rated  not 
eminence  and  honor  too  high  or  too  difficult.  When  he  found  himself 
competing  for  the  Senatorship  with  the  quickest,  the  least  scrupulous, 
and  the  most  flattered  orator  in  the  Union,  he  saw  nothing  odd  nor 
dramatic  about  it.  His  Presidential  opportunity  surprised  every- 
body but  himself — not  that  he  had  selt-conceit,  but  that  he  thought 
the  office  possible.  He  was  none  of  your  Richelieus,  meditating  aside 
the  great  uses  to  which  Providence  had  put  him.  He  never  made  a 
bid  for  the  favor  or  forgiveness  of  history,  but  ruled  the  nation  as  if 
it  were  practicing  law,  and  practiced  law  as  if  it  were  ruling  the 
nation.  This  real  greatness  of  mind,  this  obliviousness  of  circum- 
stances, ascending  from  a  practice  of  three  thousand  dollars  a  year 
to  twenty-five  thousand,  as  if  thei'e  was  iio  contrast  between  them, 
giving  "  Billy  "  permission  to  use  the  firm  style  as  before,  without  a 
conscious  poetic  trait,  yet  ever  in  absent  moments  looking  very  long 
away  pondering  the  distance  of  rewards,  promises,  vindications,  with 
a  longing  that  was  poetry — these  compose  some  of  the  character  of 
one  whose  fame  diflTers  vastly  from  his  life,  and  must  do  so  by  the 
anomaly  of  the  man.  The  strongest  of  his  loves  and  faiths  was  The 
People.  He  had  more  reverence  for  them  in  bulk  than  for  their 
highest  public  exemplars.  Religiously  he  was  a  reverent  man  without 
creed,  believing  in  a  beneficent  God — no  more.     No  denomination 


1^ 


has  a  special  claim  to  him ;  he  was  not  a  regular  church-goer ;  the 
few  clergymen  whom  he  liked  recommended  themselves  on  personal 
grounds ;  he  refused  to  argue  on  religious  matters,  but  inclined 
toward  Congregational  independence.  His  mother  and  sisters  were 
fond  of  camp-meetings,  and  a  rather  humorous  letter  held  by  Mr. 
Herndon  says  that  a  portion  of  their  family  was  regularly  converted 
every  year,  and  backslid  in  the  Winter. 

I  know  of  no  better  illustration  of  the  difference  between  the  real 
life  and  the  renown  of  Mr.  Lincoln  than  you  get  by  visiting  his 
grave.  A  horse  railroad,  two  miles  long,  leads  to  it,  in  the  ceme- 
tery of  Oak  Ridge.  Behind  you  is  his  real  life,  Springfield,  a 
Western  market  town,  set  upon  the  monotonous  prairie,  half  the 
year  noisy  with  the  chatter  of  politicians,  plethoric  with  lawyers,  for 
all  of  whom  there  is  less  than  enough  to  do,  and  savoring  much  of 
the  frost  and  the  frontier ;  a  pretty  prairie  city,  but  capitalized  so 
that  what  the  State  had  not  done  for  the  town,  and  what  the  people 
expected  it  to  do,  make  an  unfinished  desultoriness.  All  at  once,  as 
you  approach  the  Sangamon  River,  the  scene  changes.  Stalwart 
young  oaks  of  natural  growth  become  plentiful.  The  landscape  is 
plowed  with  leafy  ravines.  Bold  knolls  start  up.  A  creek  goes 
plashing  around  the  abrupt  hills.  Shadow,  murmur,  and  surprises 
succeed  the  level  life  of  the  city.  And  among  all  those  mysteries, 
itself  the  great  mystery  of  our  age,  the  vault  of  the  President  caps 
a  hill,  a  temporary  edifice  of  brick,  and  the  great  drive  of  one  of  the 
handsomest  cemeteries  in  the  Union  winds  with  the  winding  brook 

beneath  it : 

"The  last, 
As  'twere  the  cape  of  a  long  ridge  of  hill,"  ., 

and  all  the  white  tombs  marshal  about  it ;  buttonwood,  maple  and 
ash  trees  cluster  at  its  base :  here  is  to  be  his  monument.  About 
$75,000  have  been  collected  for  it  up  to  this  time,  and  it  is  supposed 
the  State  will  vote  enough  to  make  $200,000  in  all.  There  is  no 
sweeter  spot  for  a  tired  life  to  rest  in.  It  would  be  blasphemy  to 
mar  the  dead  man's  grave  with  any  mere  prettiness  of  marble  or 
smartness  of  bronze.  Let  the  fiery,  untamed  Western  genius  be  of 
timid  chisel  here.  "  Abraham  Lincoln "  is  a  good  epitaph  if  plainly 
lettered.  And,  afler  all,  will  any  monument  be  like  the  man,  for  no 
such  one  was  ever  a  sculptor's  theme  before.  Canova  could  get  no 
notion  of  Mr.  Lincoln.  An  allegory  would  be  unlike  him,  a  shaft  too 
formal,  a  statue  too  inexpressive.  If  the  Pacific  Railroad  could  be 
called  by  his  name,  that  would  be  better  than  either ;  but  this  man 
will  trouble  any  artist  in  that  he  was  so  unlike  any  model. 


13 


ME.  LINCOLN'S  FAVOEITE  POEM. 

As  is  well  known  to  many  persons,  the  exquisitely  beautiful  poem 
entitled  "  Mortality,"  referred  to  in  the  preceding  sketch,  was  an  es- 
pecial favorite  with  our  late  President,  but  it  is  not  so  generally  under- 
stood that  the  poem  was  written  by  a  young  Scotchman,  who  died  at 
thirty-seven — that  age  so  fatal  to  Burns,  Byron,  Motherwell,  and  so 
many  other  children  of  song.  One  evening  in  December,  1863,  Mr. 
Lincoln  repeated  this  poem  to  Col.  J.  G.  Wilson,  then  in  Washing- 
ton, when  the  latter  said,  "  Mr.  President,  you  have  omitted  a  portion 
of  it."  "  What !  is  there  more  of  it  ?"  responded  Mr.  Lincoln,  with 
as  much  eagerness  as  did  the  ragged  backwoodsman  in  the  story  of 
the  Arkansas  Traveler.  "  Yes,  sir,  two  other  stanzas  ;"  and  he  there- 
upon repeated  them  to  the  great  delight  of  the  President.  "  Can  you 
tell  me  who  wrote  it  ?"  asked  Mr.  Lincoln,  "  for  1  can't  find  out. 
Some  of  the  papers  attribute  it  to  me."  "It  was  written,"  replied  the 
Colonel,  "  by  William  Knox,  a  Scottish  poet  of  considerable  talent, 
who  died  at  Edinburgh  in  1825.  He  published  several  volumes  of 
poems,  and  was  well  known  to  Sir  Walter  Scott, '  Christopher  North,' 
of  glorious  memory,  and  to  many  other  of  the  literary  magnates  of 
that  day."  As  the  poem  has  already  appeared  incomplete  in  various 
journals,  we  append  it  in  full : 

MORTALITY. 

Oh !  why  should  the  spirit  of  mortal  be  proud  1 
Like  a  swift,  fleeting  meteor,  a  fast-flying  cloud, 
A  flash  of  the  lightning,  a  break  of  the  wave, 
He  passeth  from  life  to  his  rest  in  the  grave. 

The  leaves  of  the  oak  and  the  willow  shall  fade, 
Be  scattered  around  and  together  be  laid ; 
And  the  young  and  the  old,  and  the  low  and  the  high, 
Shall  molder  to  dust  and  together  shall  lie. 

The  infant  and  mother  attended  and  loved ; 
The  mother  that  infant's  aflfection  who  proved ; 
The  husband  that  mother  and  infant  who  blessed — 
Each,  all,  are  away  to  their  dwellings  of  rest. 


14 


The  maid  on  whose  cheek,  on  whose  brow,  in  whose  eye, 
Shone  beauty  and  pleasure — her  triumphs  are  by ; 
And  the  memory  of  those  that  beloved  her  and  praised, 
Are  alike  from  the  minds  of  the  living  erased. 

The  hand  of  the  king  that  the  scepter  hath  borne ; 
The  brow  of  the  priest  that  the  miter  hath  worn ; 
The  eye  of  the  sage  and  the  heart  of  the  brave. 
Are  hidden  and  lost  in  the  depths  of  the  grave. 

i 

The  peasant,  whose  lot  was  to  sow  and  to  reap ; 
The  herdsman,  who  climbed  with  his  goats  up  the  steep ; 
The  beggar,  who  wandered  in  search  of  his  bread, 
Have  faded  away  like  the  grass  that  we  tread. 

The  saint  that  enjoyed  the  communion  of  heaven ; 
The  sinner  that  dared  to  remain  unforgiven ; 
The  wise  and  the  foolish,  the  guilty  and  just, 
Have  quietly  mingled  their  bones  in  the  dust. 

So  the  multitude  goes,  like  the  flower  or  the  weed. 
That  withers  away  to  let  others  succeed ; 
So  the  multitude  comes,  even  those  we  behold, 
To  repeat  every  tale  that  has  often  been  told. 

For  we  are  the  same  our  fathers  have  been ; 
We  see  the  same  sights  our  fathers  have  seen ; 
"We  drink  the  same  stream  and  view  the  same  sun, 
And  run  the  same  course  our  fathers  have  run. 

The  thoughts  we  are  thinking  our  fathers  would  think ; 
From  the  death  we  are  shrinking  our  fathers  would  shrink ; 
To  the  life  we  are  clinging  they  also  would  cling : 
But  it  speeds  for  us  all,  like  a  bird  on  the  wing. 

They  loved,  but  the  story  we  cannot  unfold ; 
They  scorned,  but  the  heart  of  the  haughty  is  cold ; 
They  grieved,  but  no  wail  from  that  slumber  will  come ; 
They  joyed,  but  the  tongue  of  their  gladness  is  dumb. 

They  died,  ay  !  they  died :  we  things  that  are  now. 
That  walk  on  the  turf  that  lies  over  their  brow. 
And  make  in  their  dwellings  a  transient  abode. 
Meet  the  things  that  they  met  on  their  pilgrimage  road. 


15 


Yes  !  hope  and  despondency,  pleasure  and  pain, 
We  mingle  together  in  sunshine  and  rain ; 
And  tlie  smile  and  the  tear,  the  song  and  the  dirge. 
Still  follow  each  other,  like  surge  upon  surge. 

'Tis  the  wink  of  an  eye,  'tis  the  draught  of  a  breath. 
From  the  blossom  of  health  to  the  paleness  of  death, 
From  the  gilded  saloon  to  the  bier  and  the  shroud. 
Oh  !  why  should  the  spirit  of  mortal  be  proud  ? 


I 


*    .- 


